Seven tips for dealing with editorial feedback
Helen Comerford’s YA novel, The Love Interest, was started on the course and publishes in just a couple of days’ time! Here, she shares her tips for making the most from feedback.
Photo by David Travis on Unsplash
Authors are ego-monsters. I'm not going to caveat that statement with 'some' or 'most' ... All authors are ego-monsters. No exceptions. We all have a little voice in our head that tells us to keep going, that we're talented, that that other people will want to read our words and I'm not saying it's not the truth, I'm just saying that it is our egos.
And the ego-monster is a hungry one. It thrives on statements like:
'Your story is incredible!'
or
'I am blown away!'
and
'You're an amazing writer.’
Who doesn't like hearing glowing praise about their hard work?
When (my ego and) I attended Bath Spa's MA in Writing for Young People, I (we) learned a lot of things, including: how to find a child’s eye view, how to structure a story and how to develop characters, but I think the single most helpful thing I learned was how to receive feedback.
The course is a series of workshops where you read and feedback on extracts of your fellow students’ work in progresses. You can bring in new ideas, experiment in writing for different age groups and use the workshops to polish your final manuscript. I very quickly realised that what fed my ego did very little to improve my writing, so with that in mind, here are my top tips for dealing with editorial feedback.
1. Focus on the problem, not the solution. If someone is feeding back on your work in progress and offers fixes, feel free to discount them. They don’t know your story as well as you do. BUT they are flagging that there’s an issue at that point in your story and that knowledge is invaluable.
2. If it’s not helpful, let it go. You can’t please everyone. If you get workshop comments from a few different readers, there are going to be differences of opinion. Trying to action every comment from every reader will lead to literary disaster. Use what’s helpful, let go what isn’t.
3. Learn how to give constructive feedback. If you know how to feed back on other people’s writing, receiving feedback can become easier. When I edit, I want to help the writer make their work shine, and if you view other people’s feedback through that lens, it becomes easier to take.
4. Grow a thick skin. Here’s the thing about feedback from your peers – it’s generally gentle. When you get your work into the hands of agents and editors, it becomes a product that they are going to sell and they will want to make it as strong as they possibly can. Characters get cut, chunks of plot are decimated, choices are challenged and re-challenged. And it’s worth it, to make your book the best it can be.
5. Walk away. If you get long or difficult feedback, let the comments sink in and reread it after a day or two – once the defensive fog has passed, it’s much easier to understand, and see the value of, the editorial comments.
6. Be humble, be grateful. Your writing can always get better and feedback is the way that happens. Be grateful to anyone taking the time to help you; writers will have taken time away from their own projects, even agents and editors are juggling so many projects that their time is incredibly precious.
7. And be professional. Your book may be your passion, but most other people who interact with it will be doing so as part of their job. If you’re kind and professional to everyone in your authorial sphere, you’ll be known as someone who is good to work with and that counts in any industry.
Good luck on your writing journey.
Helen x
Little bio:
Helen Comerford is a writer, hiker and theatre-person based in South Wales. She completed Bath Spa’s MA in Writing for Young People in 2021. Her debut Young Adult novel, The Love Interest, is a feminist, superhero rom-com which she started on the MA. It is published by Bloomsbury on 6th June 2024.
